Picture a Dakota skipper, a delicate, golden-brown butterfly flitting through a patch of tallgrass prairie in search of its host plant, the little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium). Listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the Dakota skipper is among the many invertebrate species harmed by habitat loss and pesticide exposure. Recent and proposed changes in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations offer a glimmer of hope - but will they be enough?

The EPA is creating new strategies to address the risks of pesticides to endangered species 

The EPA is tasked with regulating pesticides to ensure that they do not pose unreasonable risks to human health and the environment. Under the Endangered Species Act, the EPA must also consult with federal wildlife agencies to protect endangered species from pesticide harm. However, this process has been slow and complicated, leading to a backlog of consultations and decades-long delays in implementing protections.  In response to lawsuits from environmental groups over its failure to protect endangered species, the agency is now creating proactive measures to address pesticide risks to federally listed species. 

To more quickly and effectively implement needed protections, the EPA is creating broad strategies for reducing impacts of pesticides on federally protected wildlife. These strategies each address different groups of pesticides—such as in the newly finalized Herbicide Strategy and the draft Insecticide Strategy—with a focus on improving protections from spray drift and runoff, two common ways pesticides can move away from where they are applied and affect surrounding wildlife.

With the new strategies, the EPA is changing how pesticides are approved for use. Previously, risks to endangered species were only considered after the pesticide had already been approved (and was potentially already harming wildlife).  Going forward, the EPA plans to assess the risks to listed species during the registration process for new pesticides or the re-registration of existing ones.

What the EPA pesticide strategies get right

The EPA’s new strategies are changing how and when pesticide users are required to use mitigation measures, techniques that limit how much pesticide moves off of agricultural fields. In order to use pesticides predicted to have impacts on an endangered or threatened species, agricultural applicators will be required to take steps to reduce risks.

These steps could include using lower application rates of pesticides, or avoiding spraying during certain time periods (for example, when a crop is in bloom) to minimize risks to species visiting crop fields. To limit exposure in nearby areas, applicators may need to create buffer zones or windbreaks to reduce spray drift, or to plant vegetation along field edges to capture runoff before it reaches nearby water bodies. The EPA uses a points system that allows applicators to choose from a suite of mitigation measures, each assigned a point value based on its perceived effectiveness at reducing pesticide risks.

Practices designed to reduce pesticide drift and runoff improve nearby habitat conditions not only for listed species but also a wider array of wildlife. The plan also restricts the use of some pesticides in and near the habitat of certain endangered species. For example, limitations will be developed for the prairie grassland remnants that the Dakota Skipper needs to survive.  Importantly, the EPA’s new strategies could bring these protections to the field years earlier than the previous system.

The EPA pesticide strategies have major shortcomings that must be addressed

While these measures are a positive step, several critical shortcomings limit their conservation benefit and need to be addressed.

1. Expand Scope Beyond Agricultural Pesticide Uses: The current strategies only address agricultural uses of pesticides. Uses outside of agriculture, such as by homeowners and pest control companies, account for over 40% of insecticide use. It is possible that the EPA will address residential uses in a future strategy, which would be a welcome step.
2. Address Important Ways that Pesticides Move in the Environment: Currently, the strategies offer some mitigations for spray drift and runoff, but they overlook other important ways that pesticides move away from the places they are applied and affect wildlife. This includes leaching, release of contaminated dust when planting pesticide-treated seeds, and vapor drift, all of which can affect habitats far from the application site. Critically, the EPA also ignores pesticide runoff into nearby habitats, which significantly underestimates the risks to wildlife from contaminated plants and soil around treated crop fields.
3. Account for the Risks of Insecticide-Treated Seed: The widespread use of treated seeds is directly linked to the widespread contamination of plants, soil, and water, and the decline of bees and butterflies. In its Insecticide Strategy, EPA significantly underestimates the use and impacts of treated seeds, which are planted on millions of acres of US cropland every year. The EPA must improve how it accounts for this major use of insecticides.
4. Eliminate Unjustified Exemptions: The EPA introduced myriad carve-outs in the proposed strategies in order to preserve many current uses of pesticides. Some of these exemptions lack scientific justification. For instance, the strategy does not require measures to prevent surface runoff in fields with subsurface tile drainage—a system of underground pipes that help remove excess water from soils. While tile drainage helps to prevent water from pooling on the surface, it doesn't stop pesticides from being carried into streams and rivers by surface runoff, especially during heavy rainfall. This exemption leaves millions of acres of tile-drained farmland in the Corn Belt without proper safeguards for a significant pathway for pesticide contamination in these areas.
5. Strengthen Enforcement: The EPA's plan for risk mitigation relies on the assumption that users will carefully follow the guidelines on pesticide labels and implement the appropriate mitigations, but real-world compliance often falls short. Without tracking compliance, it is unclear whether the proposed actions will effectively reduce pesticide exposure or improve conditions for endangered species.
    

Join Xerces in advocating for stronger endangered species protections

The new EPA strategies represent progress toward improving how the agency assesses and reduces the risks pesticides pose to threatened species. Broad protections could benefit a variety of wildlife and habitats. However, as-is, the strategies have serious flaws: a limited scope, lack of enforcement, and failure to address key ways wildlife are exposed to  pesticides. To fully protect imperiled species from the ongoing threat of pesticides, the EPA needs to address these flaws in their plan.

The EPA is currently seeking public comments on the draft Insecticide Strategy. You can help advocate for stronger protections by signing on to Xerces’ public comment or by submitting your own comment to the EPA.

Learn more about pesticide risks and regulations

• Learn more about common oversights in pesticide regulations
• Discover why pesticide-treated seeds are a serious threat to wildlife, and need better regulations
• Read the EPA's finalized Herbicide Strategy, and the draft Insecticide Strategy
• Find resources for selecting pesticide-free plants and other ways to help pollinators in your region